Falling
by SwampGirl
Summary: Tom and B'Elanna's thoughts during the early course of their relationship


AUTHOR: [Chata Saladbar][1]  
SERIES: VOY  
PART: 1/1  
RATING: [PG]  
CODES: P/T 

SUMMARY: Tom and B'Elanna's separate thoughts over the course   
of their relationship.  
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns all, including Star Trek and these  
characters. I own nothing except for the story dribble. No  
infringement is intended.  
DISTRIBUTION: Permission to be archived elsewhere must be   
obtained from theauthor. Please do not copy, distribute or reprint   
this story without the author's ([saladbar8@hotmail.com][1]) permission   
(which I most likely will give, but please ask).

**FALLING**

**Chapter 1**

Tom:

I was fascinated by B'Elanna the first time I saw her, but either my   
reputation had preceded me or she quickly saw through my smile   
and ignored me. No, she was downright hostile towards me. My   
smile has gained me many friends and companions, but not her,   
not then.

Those first years we were struggling to adapt to the strange new   
existence. We were both discovering ourselves, too busy to discover   
each other. It was exhilarating to be piloting again, to be among   
good people. I was falling in an out of crushes and crises each week.   
Somehow, between all the hustle and open-mouthed amazement of   
this new life, that feisty dark beauty B'Elanna managed to stray   
continuously into my thoughts. She was quick and smart. She puzzled   
and impressed me. She was always in the corner of my eye.

When did I start watching B'Elanna all the time? She was unlike any   
woman I had ever met. Her human and Klingon blood intertwined into   
a conundrum, a juxtaposition of characteristics and features: the   
slightness of her body belied her enormous strength, her fiery temper   
could be clamped down with her Vulcan-like self control, she had the   
brave heart of a warrior with sad eyes that revealed the vulnerability   
of the abandoned child.

I watched how she would walk into a room with the elegant sway   
and rhythm of a wildcat. How her motion commanded respect! How   
people cleared out of her way! I even believed the seas would part   
their waters so she could walk uninterrupted over the flotsam and   
jetsam of the ocean floor. Always intent on her destination, no time   
for the casual, she would stride past me, oblivious to her power over   
life forms and nature. God, I loved to watch her walk.

_B'Elanna:_

_[Other than that we were both 'not to be trusted' outsiders, Tom and   
I were polar opposites. He had a cocky and self-assured long stride; he   
was tall and golden blonde handsome. There was something that bothered   
me about his easy smile, that always present wit, the relaxed way he sat.   
Despite his previous roguish life there was something unhurried and carefree   
about his whole attitude that I just hated, or envied, or maybe even liked;   
I wasn't sure.]_

Tom:

I would overhear the men talking about the 'half Klingon'. They would   
whisper that she was pretty but unruly. They would propose that their   
manhood could calm her quick temper as if sex could improve her social   
skills. Life had dampened her spirit more than enough, I thought. She   
was brilliant and passionate but she kept everyone at arm's length. She   
denied us a peek into the many planes of her heritage, her tumultuous   
history. Despite her coat of armor, despite the fact that she appeared   
so invincible to us at times, there was something utterly fragile about   
her. I would catch her staring intently out the messhall window into the   
sparkling ink-black vacuum of space. Her eyes would be wide and dark,   
like the luck that had been following us for so many years. What were   
her rueful thoughts? Those men did not care to find out. I wanted to   
protect her from them.

_B'Elanna:_

_ [When I close my eyes I can still see exactly how father was in my   
childhood: his thick black hair, his broad grin as his muscular arms lifted   
me high, the athletic and strong way he moved. When I open my eyes   
and stare out at the black chasm all I can remember is my life since he   
left: my mother's disapproving glare, the taunts of children, the lovers   
that left me feeling empty and raw, the strangers who saw me hungry   
and thin and foolishly mistook me as easy prey.]_

  
**Chapter 2:**

Tom:

I can recall the moment when I realized I was hopelessly infatuated   
with B'Elanna, the day I knew this was so much more than a crush.   
I can't believe after so many months of watching her I had yet to   
admit this to myself. Funny that such a reality hit me in the unreal   
setting of holodeck program, packed with gaudy decorations and bad   
music for some special event. I don't remember the occasion, just that   
the crew was desperate for a change of pace from the seriousness that   
had been a part of our lives so much. As I stood among the partygoers   
my thoughts started to stray to B'Elanna. Where was the exotic engineer   
who had no time for parties? The question had just left me when she   
stepped through the gliding doors and paused for us to admire. The   
vision of her at that moment has been permanently imprinted in my   
memory. There stood a queen in a sapphire dress, a brilliant gown that   
revealed her strong soft shoulders and her thin powerful legs with skin   
was so wrapped in creamy coffee brown. Her hair, in lustrous shades of   
black and chestnut, was swept back accentuating her long tawny neck.   
Her chin was tilted up as she searched the expanse of the holodeck for   
some lucky person, she had to stand slightly on her toes to see above   
crowd. Oh, this was no ordinary queen. She was a powerful, mysterious,   
beautiful kind of royalty. The kind of queen that made you want to bow   
or curtsy. The kind that I would serve grapes to, one by one.

I was sipping my drink when she appeared and was suddenly paralyzed   
by her regal pose. I couldn't finish my gulp. I couldn't take my eyes off her.   
As she surveyed the room she caught my gaze and our eyes met as pounding   
heartbeats tolled in my ears. I saw a slight blushing of her skin.

A storm was running through my veins. I wanted to be near her. I wanted   
to reach out and touch her. I wanted to stroke that dark hair and the smooth   
hard muscles of her arms and legs. How incredibly sweet she must be to taste,   
how warm her skin must be to drink. Like a hot cup of chocolate I wanted to   
enclose my hands around the heat and feel the languid sugar blend warm my   
throat.

She looked down and moved away from me and towards her friend and   
mentor Chakotay. (My luck, the one person who was like a brother to her   
was probably the one person who liked me least on this ship.) Chakotay   
gave her a warm fatherly grin and whispered something to her. She tilted   
her head, rolled her eyes and smiled broadly. A rare beaming smile. I   
wondered what Chakotay said to her to make her smile like that. I would   
repeat the same words to her over and over.

_B'Elanna:_

_ ['You caught our helmsman's attention tonight' Chakotay teased me. Chakotay,   
in my heart he is still my captain. I smiled at him. Chakotay was my safe   
comfortable harbor so I could steady my shaking knees and cool my blood.   
Witnessing the way Tom looked at me had sent shockwaves through my   
muscles. I was still quivering. No one could know how I almost fell into   
his gaze's seductive offer.]_

Tom:

For the rest of the evening I kept stumbling in internal ecstasy and muddled   
misery. My best friend Harry even started asking what was wrong with me.   
I was dying because I knew if I reached out to B'Elanna too quickly, too   
abruptly, that she would retreat back into her jungle of warp coils and plasma   
manifolds. She would hide in her engineering castle. Or she would fight me. I   
was over a head taller than her, but I knew with one swift swing of her arm   
she could send me flying, cracking my bones, breaking my heart.

B'Elanna continued to stay by Chakotay's side as if he were her ballast. I   
wanted to approach her, to talk with her, but every welcome line that came   
to my head sounded shallow. When did I become so shallow? When did I   
begin to care if I was? I like to think of myself as easy-going around women,   
but this woman, this queen warrior cat had me light-headed. I was just   
human. I was too imperfect for the combined richness she was born of.   
Finally I just strode out of the holodeck before I could trip over someone,   
spill a drink on myself or knock down the decorations. I thought I saw her   
watch me leave. I watched, as always, through the corner of my eye. Maybe   
I saw her head turned towards me, but I couldn't see her eyes. I blamed my   
yearning imagination.

The next few months I tried to get closer to her. I first attempted the direct   
approach by asking her out for dinners. B'Elanna shot me down each time.   
She only agreed to our original arrangement of three: Harry, her and me.   
The trio of us would share a meal or play pool in Sandrine's, though now I   
could tell she was wary of my intentions. Her brown eyes would dart nervously   
around me; she rarely looked straight into my eyes.

_B'Elanna:_

_ [Those intense blue eyes were always on me, eyes as bright and as shocking as   
blue diamonds. I knew if I looked at them for more than a nanosecond I would be   
lost to him. I would become one more pip on his collar, one more female coup.]_

Tom:

Our personalities were so strong, our hidden wounds so deep that it seemed   
like we would mostly just bicker. I could not attain the relaxed ease and   
friendship she and Harry had. My energy level would soar so much around   
her that I would become a nonstop monologue of jokes and come-ons. I won   
the prize for the most continuous hours with my foot in my mouth. Despite my   
failures to impress her, she continued to meet us for breakfast or for pool,   
offering no more than a few nonchalant hours of herself to us each week. It   
was more than I could ask for. It allowed me the opportunity to see her   
outside the sterile conference staff room. During briefings we would sit far  
from each other so professional and starched. But within the unreal illuminated   
atmosphere of Sandrine's and as soft music churned behind us, I could closely   
watch her. She would lean over the pool table with one arm stretched out to   
make a shot with her thick eyebrows knitted in concentration. The bar light   
would silhouette the rounded hills and smooth valleys of her leaning body,   
a phosphorescent halo of blacks, browns and yellows.

She made me envy the pool table.

_B'Elanna:_

_ [Tom's hand would unwittingly brush my back as he changed positions around   
the table. Touches so light that I am not sure molecules met, but that spread   
warm waves from the epicenter, ending with the tingling of my fingertips. The   
sensation would momentarily wash aside the dark boulder that always sat   
heavy in my chest. I could take a deep oxygen-filled breath. I would drift   
farther and deeper into the vortex of the Paris spell.]_

Tom:

Then one man, rather Vulcan male, asked B'Elanna to marry him, or the   
whatever equivalent Vulcan term for that is. Ensign Vorik was going through   
his first Pon Farr, the time in which a Vulcan's instincts drive them to take a   
mate, fight or die. I knew Vorik was interested in her but this proposal came   
out of nowhere (OK, a Vulcan as a romantic rival never really seemed like much   
of a threat to me). From what I gathered from second hand accounts, B'Elanna   
kindly refused his proposal, provoking Vorik, with the Pon Farr 'do or die' primal   
urges surging through him, to force a 'yes' out of her by initiating a Vulcan   
telepathic mind-meld. So she graciously breaks his jaw. Atta girl! What made   
me think she would ever need me to protect her from her overly-amorous suitors?   
However, as the bizarre story continued to evolve, it turned out she did need   
safekeeping, from herself and me.

  
**Chapter 3:**

I noticed something different about her behavior almost immediately. She,   
Neelix and I left soon after the Pon Farr attack to go on a mission to collect   
galacite on the fourth planet of an uninhabited solar system (the planet   
Sakari IV, the name still conjures up so many emotions). She was a little   
more aggressive and impatient than usual. However, it wasn't until after   
her and Neelix's near-death fall during our hiking that the chemical imbalance   
Vorik had launched on her started to overtake her. In response to that Vulcan   
mind-mess her Klingon mating instincts began to involuntarily surface with a   
mighty force. A force directed at me.

Only when we were trapped in the caves, alone together, did the magnitude   
of the situation hit me. I would have liked to think she chose me as her mate   
because she really wanted me and not because she found me only marginally   
more attractive than Neelix (her only other option during the previous moments),   
but I knew it wasn't the case. What would you do if the woman you have been   
lusting in secret for months offered herself to you in a sultry, predatory and   
demanding manner? I never thought there would be enough willpower in the   
Quadrant for me to ever say no to her. But it wasn't her, I had to keep telling   
myself, it was NOT B'Elanna!

Within our corner of the cavern it felt as if we had stepped into another   
millennium. The slight movements of my handlight created fantastic shadows   
that swept along the dusty walls. With her cheeks flushed, her hair thick and   
tangled, B'Elanna exuded a raw, primordial beauty. I wanted to believe that   
she really wanted me when she kissed me. Kisses that at first were only warm   
brushes then crescendoing into a fuller, sweeter pressure. I was intoxicated by   
her taste, that honeyed, spicy flavor that only she possesses, that only her cells   
can produce. As I looked into her dark eyes, burning embers glazed in desire, I   
almost gave in to her request. I almost gave into my desperate need.

Then I had a vision of those eyes in the future, eyes free from this Vulcan   
infliction and revealing the pain and anger of my betrayal. I just couldn't do  
that to her. "I hope you say that to me one day and mean it", I finally told   
her, baring my soul to her as I moved away with one Herculean burst of   
willpower. She couldn't understand my refusal. Her struggle ripped me apart.   
I could only wait until Chakotay and Tuvok found us. I could only anxiously   
watch as she saved herself, purged her fever, by fighting Vorik.

If only she could have witnessed herself in the long shadowing light in the   
dark cave, her skin luminous in the light, how she glowed from within as if   
she held the sun inside her body. If she could have seen her fight with Vorik,  
how her rapturous Klingon strength flowed throughout her like a hot tropical   
storm. If she could have witnessed herself that day she would have known she   
came from goddess ancestry. She would understand that she grew up in a   
world that just refused to acknowledge her splendor. She would never be   
ashamed that side of herself again. She would effortlessly and assuredly rule   
the ordinary rest of us.

And after her purging fight with Vorik, after she fell into my arms from   
exhaustion, after she was breathing deeply in earned rest, I continued to   
speak softly to her. She looked so tired, so worn out from yet another unwanted   
invasion in her life, one more fight in her struggled existence. Her lashes, thick   
and black, wavered slightly against her cooling skin as a cherry stained cheek   
started to swell (damn Vorik). Her body was limp as I pressed her closer to me,   
her rosy lips were parted slightly like a sleeping baby. I kept whispering to her  
that everything was going to be fine, that she had fought and won, that now I   
was taking care of her. I continued to touch her, long after I knew she could not  
feel me, because I needed to comfort her. Because I loved her. I adore her.

_B'Elanna:_

_ [As Tom's hands stroked me I could feel my hard breathing start to steady.   
Noone had ever touched me so gently, with such loving soft caresses, asking   
for nothing in return. For one fleeting luminous moment before I drifted into a   
deep safe sleep I felt a complete and serene happiness.]_

  
**Chapter 4:**

Tom:

B'Elanna forgave Vorik almost immediately. That surprised me. Later she   
would tell me that he was just too good at engineering to be transferred;   
she said she had understood what he was going through. Vorik continued   
being Vulcan with no embarrassment or guilt visible on his face. But I still   
growl when I see Vorik. I can't forgive him for what he made her go through.

Long after the Pon Farr was purged and after the initial shock and   
embarrassment of Sakari IV faded, B'Elanna became more relaxed around   
me. I think I proved to her that I just wasn't just hormonally charged for her.   
We became friends. Good friends. She didn't make it easy for me, and we did   
fight more than laugh, but I tried to be the best friend she could have. Her big   
brown eyes would look up at me and narrow, they would roll, but they would   
look straight at me. Sometimes I could make a wide grin sweep across her   
lovely face. Her rare laughter was like a rhapsodic melody. It would crack me   
open to more love. She could make my heart lurch like a lovesick schoolboy's.   
I could not imagine a more vital and sensitive person in my life. She was tightly   
wound, and held on to her battered heart tightly, but those were part of the   
many things I loved about her.

I now know that for so many years I unconsciously looked for her in other   
women, but none of them had her wholly. None of them made me dream   
of my future children running opened-armed to me with uncombed and dark   
hair flying behind them and with scurring bodies so strong, so healthy and   
tawny.

  
**Chapter 5:**

_B'Elanna:_

_ [There was not a lot I could hide from Tom. He had noticed the scars of   
years of blaming and ridicule, the guilty invisible scratches they have left   
on me. He had seen the uncontrollable temper and silly pride of my Klingon   
half and shameful cowardliness of my human half. He endured Sakari IV   
with me foolishly throwing myself at him in my ugly primitive urgency. Yet   
he continued to hover around me, smiling, caring for me, like bringing me   
hot soup when the energy-saving climate controls were set too low for a   
half-Klingon, or setting a cup of coffee next to me when I was working   
way too long and late. Sometimes I would feel ashamed at being presented   
with such a armful of thoughtfulness. Then sometimes he made me believe   
there had to be a lot more good in me than bad or else why would he care   
so much?]_

_[Then he would whisper some sly remark to me and I would be astounded   
on how aroused I would get. I would suddenly become aware of my body,   
all my erogenous zones long forgotten. My breasts would suddenly feel full   
and hard. The skin inside my thighs would singe. The desire would make   
me giddy and I would have cletch my fists and lash out a indifferent response   
to save face and stop these ridiculous emotions.]_

_[But so often my gaze would linger in secret at his long piano fingers.   
I couldn't help but love those hands, and love the shape of his jaw, the   
strength of his arms, his big smile. I loved the way his brilliant eyes would   
pierce me with such a wide range of emotions: anger, concern, happiness,   
but never ever with fear. I wanted to tangle myself in his face and towering   
height. I wanted to climb into him and take everything he offered.]_

_[Then what was my internal war all about? The fear of being held in a warm   
hug versus continuing alone and cold? If I accepted him I accepted the   
knowledge that I was setting myself for sorrow? It would render me vulnerable,   
without shields and penetrable to outside attack. Someone or something would   
have found out about my joy and snatched it away from me. I had lost a lot of   
people in my life, some just left me, but I knew I could not survive losing Tom.]_

_[Oh Tom, how you must have suffered getting close to my savage, solitary soul.] _

**Chapter 6:**

Tom:

In space, with its stillness and unknown constellations, B'Elanna told me   
she loved me. I was shocked and then saddened by the news. We were   
losing oxygen and dying. Suddenly I knew I would never have my rightful   
place in the land of requited kisses and caresses. I thought I would never   
would have the chance to touch the unseen parts of her silky summery skin.   
All I could do is circle her in my arms and wait for the sleep to overtake us   
and slowly accept the happiness that I would die loved.

But the Fates refused to be cruel to me. Now we are safe although the   
space outside is still vast and dangerous. She is with me as I kiss and   
enter her again and again in sight of distant suns outside the window.   
Here I can love her openly. She is mine, the dazzling warrior queen with   
the cherry plum lips. I can now savor those secret places of dewy petals.   
My boundless desire and love are tied to her body forever. With her I   
know the most awesome and brilliant part of my life lies ahead.

**THE END**

   [1]: mailto:saladbar8@hotmail.com



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